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121424-to-save-the-dominion-illium-needs-to-be-redesigned
Content ---- ---- Where does that information come from? IMO it is not a capital city that decides whether or not someone will play a given faction. It's things like - what classes / race combinations are available to that side (Alliance used to be incredibly popular until horde came out with blood elves, as an example), and how the faction 'feels' as well as the initial starting areas. You don't experience any of the cities until you're into the game a bit. I think peoples choices as to whether they're rolling one way or another is based on things they see BEFORE the cities. (again just opinion) | |} ---- And I see the complete oposite. Talked with various Exiles on saturday, and they all agreed that their city "sucks" compared to Illium. This is going to be a "yes-no" debate, as it's purely personal opinions. | |} ---- Just from my own personal experience. Wanted to be Dom, got to Illium and thought "Hmm so flat, spread out and lifeless. Do I really want this as my capital city? Where is everyone? Oh, everyones spread out across the city so it seems like there's only 5 people in Illium at any given time. Yea, guess I'll roll Exile" Present day, I see lots of Dominion hanging out in Thayd wishing they had rolled Exile because "look at all these people". Well the reason there is all these people is because the AH, pvp vendors, teleporters and crafting stations are all next to each other | |} ---- ---- ---- I understand your view though ;) | |} ---- The Dominion are "the real underdogs"? LOL! No... Having played both sides, this is completely false. The underdogs are the ones who (up until recently) have constantly been on the run for 300+ years from a massive, Galaxy Wide, "Planet Harvesting", Empire, that is bent on hunting them down and killing them. All because a few underdogs managed to wound said Galaxy Wide Empire's pride. Said underdogs, who not only don't have an entire Empire's might and resources to back them up, but have to rely on salvaging whatever tech and supplies they can. In order to survive. | |} ---- Please, only Chua harvest Planet. Cassian no get credit in this. | |} ---- You blasted Chua! Justice for Arboriaaaaa! | |} ---- Chua only needed wood for new table. Not fault of Chua Aurin not wanted to share. | |} ---- ... Low blow... You sinister little fiends. You could have use the wood from the brooms that are up the behinds of all Cassians! | |} ---- It's Cassian Grade "Bottom Wood"! What could be more pristine and top quality, to your average Dominion citizen? I mean it COMES from Cassians! You just wanted to be bullies! Admit it. ADMIT IT! (Those poor Aurin....) | |} ---- Chua prefer quality. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- By the real underdogs, I mean they're the much less played faction, and you don't see many folks cheering us on. On the PvP servers, (when those existed) Exiles would regularly zerg Dominion players with vastly superior numbers. Hence, Dominion are the underdogs by reality alone. | |} ---- Oh, that's different. I thought you meant storyline wise. But really, when the population increases the Dominon population should increase. They're like The Horde in WoW, it seems. Where more (hate this term) "pro" players tend to gravitate. We already see glimpses of this with the first Avatus kill being on Dominion side, and most of the best PvPers (rating wise) being there too. | |} ---- ---- ---- I agree, Chillia. I understand from a lore point of view that the exile are rebuilding and "messy" for a lack of better words. I think a big QoL change for navigating Thayd would be making those teleporters permanent. That'd be really nice. Maybe I should've went Dominion... lol, I don't think I have OCD, but do have some traits - orderliness and cleanliness sounds great to me lol Having dabbed around in the city a bit on the PTR and in beta, I do agree it could have more "liveliness" with talking NPCs and more "going on" (I don't have many ideas to provide right now but I'll leave it at that). | |} ---- ---- Yeah, there may be reasons the Exiles have a higher population (having a higher population may be a reason, as everyone wants to be where the player volume is). Illium is NOT one of them. If there's one thing I've heard Exiles complain about almost universally, it's that a lot of us don't like Thayd. There's garbage everywhere, it looks like a refugee camp, and that's kind of what they were going for. But it's not a reason a lot of people play Exiles. I definitely prefer the look of Illium. It was one of the reasons I was going to roll permanent Dominion before I was asked to step in as a GM on Exile side. | |} ---- ---- Some of us don't roll Aurin, and we're proud of it! | |} ---- ---- Vic, players like you is what prevents Nexus from becoming a 2nd Arboria. Stand strong! | |} ---- To be fair, Illium has 3 auction houses. One is like 10 feet from the pvp vendors. The trade vendors are kind of removed from everything else, granted, but I rather like them near the housing console. | |} ---- And we're supposed to be the evil ones? oO | |} ---- I'm not sure... characters like Seeger are the reason people want more Aurin around. Aurin so far drink a lot of juice and are sometimes vegetarian. My last little bit of RP had Seeger painting a symbol on someone else's head with the blood of a jabbit raised in innocence and slaughtered with the bare hands. :unsure: I may be part of the problem. | |} ---- Are you basing your opinion on beta Illium or on current Illium? Current Illium is great. Has way less "running around" than Thayd. And oh gosh, let's not even talk about handing in Drusera's missions. | |} ---- I like cuy.... | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Thayd really, really, REALLY needs structures. They exist as flavor (there are neon signs everywhere) but most of Thayd is still a tent city with refuse everywhere. I understand there's a sort of thrown-together patchwork look, but Thayd could use some more actual structures (either re-purposed or built) so that it looks like people actually have settled there. I feel like the Exiles are living in a UN refugee camp while Illium is this gorgeous, manicured city (that apparently was built after the Dominion arrived later). | |} ---- ---- I'll tell ya what grinds my gears, the crafting area. I live in the awesome city of Illium, in all its grand scale and glory. Most parts of the city feel big, strong, and powerful. Yet when I find myself in the crafting area I feel like I am in an after thought of the city, crammed into some extra space that was graciously left over by Mondo because he didn't need a new testing grounds. (We need a better crafting area!) | |} ---- ---- You can buy a mailbox for your house, place it as decor and functions as an open world mailbox just the same. | |} ---- ---- Yeah I know, I was just busting on the fact that you have to BUY it. :) | |} ---- There's one CX/AH/Bank in Illium that is literally never used. It's in a quieter part of the city, away from everything. Add in a new crafting area near there, and you'd suck alot of people to that area of town and add some life to an otherwise dead zone. | |} ---- And just to be safe. You should buy 10 mailboxes and put them throughout your plot. So you don't have to walk one inch to get your precious mail. | |} ---- Unless you PvP the mailboxes are level 50 or high 40's. I've heard that you can place the crafted ones at a lower level, but it seems they're in the mood to start enforcing arbitrary level limitations players be damned. And crafting workstations. The Thayd ones are superior due to proximity and they're not in no-mount zones like the ones in Illium. Frankly I prefer the AH/CX location near the housing access unless I'm crafting. Placing Deadeye at the Black Hoods Bar earned a sarcastic "gee thanks". At least he's not nearly as bad as the guy in Illum yelling "Heeeeeeeeeey! Heeeeeeeeey!" (why hasn't some irritated draken ganked him yet?) | |} ---- I think the main problem with the two alternative AH/CX locations (which I have used in the past to avoid the crowd) is that they are nowhere remotely near the crafting stations. If there was just one multipurpose crafting station near each of those, it'd probably help alleviate some of the crowding of Academy Corner (though I'm sure people would still gather there out of habit, just like they did in Orgrimmar in the Valley of Strength even after the installation of hubs elsewhere XD). | |} ---- To improve the look of Thayd, as well as the ease of travel, I'd wave my magic copy/paste wand and swap the place of the Crooked Corners/Alchemist Maze with the Arborian Gardens. The Arborian Gardens are open and easy to travel through, which would improve navigation between the north and south parts of the city, and they also has a nice lived-in look. (How come the Aurin have had time to build complete houses and grow gardens in the time the rest of Thayd still have not gotten beyond tents?) Speaking of tents, I'd also copy some Granok houses from Whitevale to replace an area of tents, so you can have a Granok neighbourhood between majestic Osun City walls, in the way Arborian Gardens has Aurin houses between said walls. | |} ---- Wouldn't make a lot of sense geography-wise, though, as the Gardens are kind of just an extension of part of Celestion. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing gradual updates to Thayd that demonstrate the Exiles actually building livable places, though. That would be cool. Even better if we can go INSIDE THEM. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Oh great suggestion | |} ---- I can imagine a great mix of cultures in Thayd but I don't think the Dominion imperialist views would allow a too mixed city. I can imagine useful stuff implemented (like the Chua tunnels ideas) but not too visually clashing. | |} ---- Better that than what Thayd reminds me of: | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- I was some what regretting posting this thread as no one seemed to think the same thing as me. This pic made it all worth it though | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- This made me remember Dalaran, which is a great example of a sort-of-capitol city that's not that big, but that's really functional. An example of the opposite (giant area with horrible layout) from the same game is Silvermoon city. Beautiful, but horrible to navigate through. | |} ---- I disagree, because most cities are not well laid out. They grow organically, and Thayd has that feel, it started at a central location and sorta spread out as the land allowed from there. Illium on the other hand strikes me as a city that was laid out and then built all at the same time. | |} ---- Caydiem, thanks much. While I don't agree with Evade that it's been a substantial reason why there's fewer Dommies, I do play both factions and I have to say that I found Illium to be inconvenient and offputting in a way that I have never found Thayd to be. It's so empty. There's lots of janitors keeping the place clean, but once you step off the main road going into the center of town, there isn't anybody they're keeping it clean for. Evade's comparison to the city in Shrek 1 is a good one. Every time I go there, the contrast with places like the market in Thayd--which has lots of people shopping--or Crooked Corners, which has drunks fighting and wandering around--is just remarkable to me. Even if you live in a galactic empire, you still need to do some shopping. Like Naunet, I understand and support the need for "unused space", but the absence of unused NPCs just wandering around doing their own things in the overwhelming majority of that space is kind of creepy. It also has far too many long and uninterrupted blocks of continuous building that can't be slipped between or jumped over but instead must be followed from end to end just to find a corner where you can actually make your way up one street just so that you can follow the other side of the same row of buildings to reach targets or challenges on the other side. | |} ---- I completely agree. I find nothing wrong with the aesthetic of Illium, quite the contrary actually, I think it suits the Dominion perfectly. The aspect of Illium that I, personally, take issue with is that it feels so... empty compared to Thayd. This is supposed to be the new capital city of one of the largest and most powerful empires in the galaxy and yet, aside from the janitorial population, it appears to be something of a ghost town. I would love to see more NPC's to make it feel more alive. ^_^ | |} ---- On the other hand, Silvermoon held the majority of WoW Horde RP because it had such a sprawling layout, which made for a lot of RP spots. Roleplaying in Orgrimmar or Dalaran was incredibly difficult. | |} ---- (Also Silvermoon had chairs, a Horde novelty. Orgrimmar had a sprawling layout but few RP spots; Dalaran had RP spots but were easily interrupted due to the compact nature of the city.) I am all about adding life to the cities and improving flow, and I hope to address both. We have to be very mindful of performance, though; the more creatures on screen doing things, the lower performance dips. The same holds true for being able to look down a street and see the whole city, for example. City design is a delicate balance of preventing significant performance hits while still having a good flow and population feel. We could have done better on both of those, and I'm hoping to improve the situation in time. | |} ---- *Hits Like Button* oh...wait... :) | |} ---- Looking forward to it, thanks for listening! :) | |} ---- I think it was mostly the case because other cities were much more crowded (which means there's a higher possibilities of different RP acts intercepting one another). Also Silvermoon is the only city that actually looked like a city: Orgrimmar is an ugly refuge in sick-orange rocks, Thunder Bluff looks awesome but is essentially an uplifted village (literally), while Undercity is basically sewers, and looks the part. Silvermoon, on the other hand, had actual streets, houses and several squares, and was also remote enough to not be interrupted, but also was easily accessible via the portal from Undercity. I horribly dislike the path that that company took in the latest patches - no capitols, just a new hub (which sucks). Capitol is there for a reason, and I strongly disagree with anyone that says that it's not important. I just wish that one-for-faction capitol would look like it'd look if this was the real deal: it should inhabit features from all races that are part of this faction, or hold separate racial areas that are distinctly different from each other (like Arborian Gardens, which is the only racial district in Thayd, though it doesn't have anything that makes people hang in there). | |} ---- Please, pretty please also look at EU server populations and their locations in cities!!!! I cannot stress this enough, but what works on a US server, might totally nor work on the EU server. I've seen many differences about where people stand and gather in the cities by playing both region PvE servers. | |} ---- I don't have easy access myself, Olivar -- but I'd love to hear your explanation of the differences. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Not sure which US server you went on, but the map you posted is nearly mirror image of what the concentration of players gather is on Entity. Space port alpha is almost always more packed on Entity then the secondary AH by the pvp side. It usually feels like a ghost town anytime I go to the pvp vendors for something. I absolutely second having an AH near the middle in the crafting section. Its so frustrating when redoing runes to have to run to the exchanges come back and realize that you forgot to get something off the exchange lol. | |} ---- ---- Just to address this briefly: there are new Renown vendors coming in drop 4. One will be on your housing plot next to the board, giving you very easy access to Renown rewards. The others will be within the new daily hubs in the cities and will offer Renown purchases related to that content. (The daily hub is just behind the taxi in Illium, and within the crossroads for Thayd, though the latter is a wee bit cramped and we're fixing that up in the future.) Olivar, I appreciate the map! Your observation on US population spread has not been my experience, however. It sounds like US and EU is fairly unified in using the Spaceport Alpha services first and foremost. :) That wasn't always the case in beta, mind, but that's due to the lack of other AH/CX services in the city until later. Edited January 29, 2015 by Caydiem | |} ---- My oberservations are valid until start of December, when I stopped playing on US. I've always seen more people in the crafting section, luminous gardens and the AH there compared to the spaceport. Perhaps this has shifted, if so, then there should be no problem. | |} ---- This should be very helpful then, and a good use of space. Thanks for addressing that since I don't frequent the PTR. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Not true. You can taxi to Illium from both starting zones as soon as you get there. | |} ---- I mean, that when you do Algoroc for example, when you finish it, there is a quest to take a taxi straight to Thayd. Can't recall at the moment if you have to pay for the taxi, but is an actual quest. Haven't seen a similar one in Dominion side. At lvl 15 is very likely you have a mount, and the walking distance is shorter than in Algoroc, but I think is not an excuse. If you can at that time use a taxi from like said Deradune to Illium because Illium taxi node auto opens is another thing. But I haven't checked that. | |} ---- ---- ----